Pages

10.01.2013

i stood in front of loved ones 9 years and 1 day ago and declared my "'til deatheternity NOTHING do us part" love for jesus. this was my public and outward vow of faith in christ. in a very real way it was my wedding to him: a public statement of my intent and desire to remain with him for all eternity.

that worked out nicely...

i stood in front of many of those same loved ones exactly 7 years ago today and committed my entire earthly self to jesse. sickness, health. richer, poorer. brain-meltingly frustrated, googly-eyed smitten. every moment we're both on earth, we're each others'.

oh you two hot stupid little fools.

the marriage parallel is probably my favorite of all the ways that the bible likens our relationship with christ to other things (i also LOVE king/subject, btw). i think one of the main reasons i favor this one above all the others (coin, sheep, prodigal, etc) is because it's sort of backwards from the way the others are presented.

lots of time we hear jesus say "the kingdom of heaven is like..." and then he puts it in terms of smaller, everyday stuff that we have more experience and familiarity with than the all-encompassing glory of god. i dont super-understand the everlasting sanctification of my mortally sinful spirit through christ's work on the cross, but i can picture a tree giving crappy rotten figs versus nice delicious plump ones. (i'll take a bushel of sancti-figs, please!)

take a big awe-inspiring idea and use something more common to help us understand it. take a big magical mysterious thing and boil it into something simpler that we have real life experience with. jesus was helpful like this when explaining his ways to us pea-brains

these comparisons are illustrations and they kind of stop there. we arent going to become seeds, or sheep or fruit when we enter god's kingdom. it's just a little glimpse to help us understand until we can truly see.

but with marriage it's the opposite. he presents the thing we're more day-to-day familiar with first: earthly marriage, and then says: "hey, this right here, it's even more lofty and weird and cool than you had ever dreamed of. MARRIAGE is like the kingdom of heaven." it is a subtle difference but it's one that i think makes both the faith relationship and the earthly marriage relationship both more magical.

when "the kingdom of heaven is like..." something else, it's glory coming down to earth. to our level. god most-high becoming human. the mystery of god's word being like scattered seed so we can sort of/kind of understand it. the creator of ALL THE THINGS becoming a tiny middle-eastern baby so we could feel his love.

that is amazing and awesome. but the coolest part of jesus isnt that he came down. it's that he rose back up: out of the grave and back to heaven and he brought us with him.

marriage isnt something bigger becoming something more humble to get on our level. it seems to me that it is something already magical having the chance to become even more. marriage is like the kingdom of heaven. the promise of the chance to be more, to love more. to draw even closer to him.

because when we get to god's kingdom we ARE actually going to be brides. spotless and new. perfected and ready to enter into an even deeper and more intimate relationship with our groom than we could have even dreamed of before the wedding feast. charles spurgeon describes it so perfectly:

Then it shall come to pass that Christ will celebrate this marriage supper, which will be the bringing of the people of God into the closest and happiest union with Christ their Lord in Glory. Even now the Lord Jesus Christ is no stranger to some of us, and we are not strangers to Him. Yet there shall come a day when we shall see Him face to face and then we shall know Him with a clearer and fuller knowledge than is possible for us today.

jesus didnt give us marriage just to help us understand his love for us and ours for him. he gave it to us to PRACTICE this love...in both directions. when everything is as it was intended (this occurs approximately 43 minutes per year in our house) my jesus relationship should constantly be informing and dictating my devotion to and love of jesse, and my marriage relationship should constantly be pointing me back to jesus and acting out a perfect christ-minded unity. like two mirrors face to face reflecting back to infinity.

christian marriage isnt just LIKE the kingdom of heaven. when we give christ the centrality and sovereignty over our marriage that he intended, asks for and deserves, it actually IS the kingdom of heaven.

mind: blown.

having my 2 wedding anniversaries within a day of each other is an awesome reminder for me every year of the high standard my marriage is called to and of the even more perfect promise of christ to come. it is also fun to talk about my "first marriage" and my "second marriage" happening concurrently like i'm some kind of polygamizing banshee.

happy 7 years of hilarious, face-meltingly weird, ass-achingly hard, and yet totally worth it earthly marriage, jesse! i love you

4 comments:

Beautiful! What a great reminder of the gift that marriage is to us on earth and the blessing it is (should be) to our Father. Thanks for encouraging me to practice loving Jesus more by loving my husband better.

Love the interweaving of your thoughts regarding your weddings - sort of like your scarves-Awesome! Immediately sent this off to our ministry blogsters to repost!! You have an incredible way with words, Keight. You delve into such deep topics and make them come out fresh and inspiring and meaningful and rich. Can't tell you how much I enjoy reading you on Jesus and you.

Love the interweaving of your thoughts regarding your weddings - sort of like your scarves-Awesome! Immediately sent this off to our ministry blogsters to repost!! You have an incredible way with words, Keight. You delve into such deep topics and make them come out fresh and inspiring and meaningful and rich. Can't tell you how much I enjoy reading you on Jesus and you.